Kealy Severson: 0:06

Welcome to our podcast. My name is Kealy Severson and I'm here with Erik Johnson and Alicia Swamy and today we are here with our awesome sponsor and friend, the Rubin New, The Michael Rubino, as known on Instagram. Michael Rubino is the founder of the HomeCleanse and also Michael, you just launched something really awesome. You just launched a new foundation called, Change the Air Foundation. Can you tell us a little bit about your new foundation?

Michael Rubino: 0:36

Yeah, so basically Change the Air Foundation is a foundation that I started, there's a group of us now and it seems to be an expanding group and our mission is to essentially help change the air right, but more focused on indoor air, as opposed to outdoor air. And we plan to do that through education, policy reform, scientific studies, and I can kind of dive more into that, too, on what our plans are for that. And just to help bridge the gap between the health of ourselves and the actual air that we're breathing inside of our homes.

Kealy Severson: 1:13

Yeah, I'd actually like to hear about some of the studies that you're interested in launching.

Michael Rubino: 1:18

Yeah so on the study side, there's a couple of different ideas that we have. And obviously, we're very much in the ideation stage right now. We're currently putting together our scientific advisory panel of qualified experts that can help us with this, right. But with one of our products that we're launching at Home Cleanse called the Dust Test that I love to talk more about as well. Being able to collect data from people's homes, correlating that with whatever biomarkers that they're having inside of their bodies, could be a pretty big breakthrough and understanding how homes, what specific contaminants, and the exact biomarkers that is affecting them, and help bridging that gap between practitioners, inside people's homes like me and doctors, right, combining that with researchers, because I think you guys know already that a lot of researchers are writing papers without any input from doctors without any input from people working in the field and so if we can help bridge that gap, through some of the products that we have some of the data that we're collecting inside people's homes, real data, we're hoping that done in a proper way, we can actually get some good information across and into people's hands.

Kealy Severson: 2:34

Is that is that the new product that you're launching Coming up here, the new screening tool?

Michael Rubino: 2:40

Yes.

Kealy Severson: 2:41

Is that what you're referencing, can you tell us a little?

Michael Rubino: 2:44

Yes. So basically, I partnered with a lab called The MSL and we're launching what's called the dust test. The dust test is essentially very similar to you know, what you would consider ERMI in terms of screening for different molds that are present inside the home. It has the capability of screening for mycotoxins, not all of them of course, there's only a very limitation on how many mycotoxins we can test for. But it's a great starting point, and endotoxins, which are toxins that are produced by bacteria as they die off, mainly because water damage environments can bring both mold and bacteria into the equation. So by screening for those things, by testing the dusts, you're gonna get a lot more accurate reading of actually what you're exposed to then by testing the air. I think we've all have heard stories of victims of people coming into people's homes, taking an air sample in the center of their room, and saying, yeah, all looks good here, we're all clear mold is not your problem, or bacteria is not your problem, etc. And then after they actually start opening things up, they find some, right. And the reason for that is because mold typically aerosolizes pretty short distance from where it's located. Obviously, it settles in the dust, it transfers around the home, we do know that, but it typically does so once it becomes part of the dust and as dust moves around the environment, but when you're not analyzing the dust, you have a very strong possibility of missing those things. And so when we screen with air tests, to do a proper screen, you would really need to take like 100 different air tests in all different spots of each room and each part of the house to really be able to screen it. And I believe large labs charge $79 per test or 59. Somewhere around that margin, you know, you're talking 10s of 1000s of dollars to essentially test the home properly to screen it. When you screen the dust, you can do it for a couple 100 bucks, right? So it actually gives you a lot better view is to the contaminants that you're being exposed to and not not have to rely on one or two air tests to tell you a full picture. There's a Kizza can,

Kealy Severson: 4:59

One thing that I think is confusing for people with the dust test is when they sample multiple locations for one sample, and then they get a result because then it's like, well, where? Where was the bad dirt from? And I'm just wondering, will your test have variation of like one sample per area so that people know like, Okay, in this area, this is where we need to look or like, how is that? I guess how is that worked out? I feel like that really confuses people.

Michael Rubino: 5:28

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, there's no real perfect way to do it. Right? We don't yet have this as a perfect science. You know, the idea is to use it more as a screening tool, it's not going to help with identifying where it's coming from. But I think for what we're trying to do is we're trying to create a new entry point into this, you know, most people come into this equation trying to understand, do I have a problem inside my home. Maybe they saw a doctor, doctor suggests that they may have a problem inside their home, they start looking online, they're experiencing similar symptoms as some of their friends or family that may be struggling through a similar situation and they don't have a good way to understand if there is a problem inside their home. So while it's not perfect, it still will require some investigation as to where the problem is coming from it at least lets us know if there is a problem in the first place. We're getting peace of mind, or we're getting information knowing that there's an abnormality here, and we need to look for it.

Kealy Severson: 6:27

Okay. You also mentioned, is it okay if we talk about the other product, the one that's not launching Monday.

Michael Rubino: 6:34

Sure.

Kealy Severson: 6:35

I thought that this one was interesting, because when we were living in mold, unknowingly, our youngest child had a really bad cough in her room and at that time, there was no detectable smell. But a few months later, there was, and the room had been taking on water, I mean, you could see the could see like the walls swelling and like blowing up and cracks opening after like a week of rain, because we had a long term roof leak. And you could just see it was taken out all this water and so we called our mold inspector back in and our moisture readings were dry. And we have so many obvious clues like a new musty smell mold, literally growing on rocking chair, wooden toys, wooden dressers, all these signs of water, and like no validation on the moisture reading and you have a new product to detect moisture, I'm hoping that it's way more effective than whenever they brought it my house for this moisture meter, can you tell us a little bit about what this device?

Michael Rubino: 7:36

Yeah, I can tell you, I can tell you on a high level kind of what what the product is what it'll be called. And the idea behind it is called, it's going to be called Home Cleanse Guardian kind of like it, it looks similar to like a nest, it's going to be a device that installs on your wall. And what it's going to do is it's going to monitor changes in the actual moisture in your environment, it's going to pick up condensation from an HVAC line that maybe is so minimal, that doesn't actually create any visible signs. But this should pick it up when you have those those changes because in real time, it's always monitoring the moisture content inside the room. And so when you do have these periods where it comes off, like maybe it's raining outside and you have some water coming in through a window, HVAC's running, you're having temperature differentials is picking up condensation from behind the ceiling that you can't see, you'll be able to actually see those changes in real time. And it'll alert you that something funky is going on in bedroom one. So that you can get someone in there to see what's going on and take action. This is especially important because you know people spend a lot of money improving their homes, maintaining their homes, right and they want to feel safe and secure knowing that there's not additional problems and it doesn't matter how much renovations you do to a home. Unfortunately, things change over time and so giving people that first line of defense that something's not right, you know, like you said, if you can catch it a couple of months before, you know it gets to become a lot much bigger problem, it's going to save you money in the long run because a now you can fix it before it becomes this big mold problem. And b now you don't have to deal with all of the expensive health consequences that come with being in that environment. So you know, the product still very much in development and still very much in early stages. I don't think it'll it probably wouldn't come out until sometime next year. But we are very excited at the possibility of creating this product. Getting out into the marketplace and testing it to a level that we feel is adequate and will actually work as it's supposed to be.

Kealy Severson: 9:39

You already know what the alarm system will be. Well, it'd be like an app alerting you or like a like a beep like a fire alarm.

Michael Rubino: 9:47

Yeah. So there's going to be two different you know, mapping this out. There's going to be two different programs. One, it's just app driven. The second it'll be you can pay like a monthly monitoring service which will actually call you, you know, just as if somebody was breaking into your home, Hey, your alarm is going off is that you? Right, you will get a call and say, hey, just want to let you know, just in case because we all get busy, right? And we don't, we don't always look at our apps and stuff like that. So it'll have actually, somebody will call you and tell you, hey, something's not okay, you want me to help you find somebody to come and check it out. And that's kind of the idea is creating this ecosystem, where we have products that can keep us aware of things that we're not always looking about, and try to provide those solutions. With Home Cleanse, the idea of changing from all American restoration with Home Cleanse, it was about trying to move the needle in a way where we're not just the people that you call when you have a problem, and you're really sick. But we wanted to come up with the solutions of how to stop people from getting that bad off in the first place. And so that's kind of where my focus is on creating the future of what that looks like.

Kealy Severson: 10:57

Will that be a device that's recommended to have maybe one in each room and maybe one in the attic?

Michael Rubino: 11:05

Yeah, I think it's going to have for it to be effective, because it can only monitor, you know, changes in a specific square footage, right. So, fortunately, it's probably going to need to have it in every room, if you want to have it in every room. You know, certainly you want to have it in rooms that are more prone to leaks, which obviously, are going to be any rooms with a door or window or plumbing fixtures. And I think the attic would obviously make a lot of sense to with with this the ability for the roof to leak through various different methods. So yeah, I think it'll, it'll be something that you want to you want to have multiple of not just one, basements would be another great place to have maybe even crawl spaces, especially because we never go down there and check them. So these are some of the the ideas of how I would do it. And, you know, the goal is to be able to give you the option of buying just one device or 10, you know, and create different bundles to make it as affordable as possible for people.

Kealy Severson: 12:04

Yeah, well, thank you so much for hopping on and updating us on your foundation and you know, the direction of your Home Cleanse business. I'm sure Erik and Alicia have good questions. So I'll pass the mic on over.

Alicia Swamy: 12:19

Yeah. Thanks again for joining us, Michael, we just appreciate you, you're so fierce in this industry, you've got Home Cleanse, Mold Medic, now you're you're involved in, Change the Air Foundation, something that I really loved when I went through your guys's website is that you plan on offering financial assistance. And we know this is such a burden within the population that we serve is that home is mass and it's gonna cost way too much for me to fix it and my insurance doesn't want to cover it. And I just want to know, like, what are you guys going to be offering? Or what is that going to look like in the future for the foundation?

Michael Rubino: 12:57

Yeah, I mean, I think it's gonna, it's gonna be like anything else, it's gonna start in stages, the bigger we get, and the more money we're able to collect from donations, the more we can obviously provide assistance to people. But I think, you know, our main goal from that financial assistance perspective is actually to start tapping the government for financial assistance because, I mean, there are so many people suffering, you know, even even these floods that just happened these past couple of weeks, right? All over the country, you know, how these things work is FEMA comes in and gets involved. FEMA then kind of steps in and offers financial assistance for these homes to get fix. But, you know, I know in my heart of hearts that these homes are not going to be fixed properly. And that kind of thing really upsets me because a lot of the government money gets squandered. It's not utilized properly. There's not very good oversight. And I know this, particularly because I was around for Hurricane Sandy it was actually kind of right around that time that my career started and it was insane. You had trucks of people coming in from out of state, all over the country, essentially. And they were just picking people off the street, putting T shirts on them that had their logo on it and just go in house to house and I mean, literally haphazardly ripping stuff out, you know, guys for seven years after Hurricane Sandy, I was still going back into homes and re-remediating them that were not properly remediated from Sandy and people were getting sick and not feeling well, which is kind of what's been this whole journey that I've been on this past decade, because this is what happens and none of us know, you know, and we create the situation. We're all ignorant to it. And I think that's really part of the problem. So creating awareness around that. There are some heartbreaking stories that I've had experienced with, you know, military veterans living in Section Eight housing in various parts of the country. The housing is not adequate. People are getting sick in there, kids are getting sick in there. I want to show people that I want to, you know, share those stories with people, because it's not okay. You know, and I don't blame the government, I don't, I'm not trying to I'm not here to make enemies out of anybody. You know, I think that a lot of people, unfortunately don't know what they don't know. And it's time to create that knowledge and to have, I think, I think when we're if we're able to really meaningfully and powerfully share these stories, with state legislators, we can get some change going and that includes financial assistance in a big way because raising funds and helping someone with$20,000. I know that I know, that can change somebody's life, and I'm all for it. But it's a short term solution, right. And I want to change people's life in a big way, by making sure that we can change some of the ways we look at these situations, and we get into these situations, and try to move that needle forward. And so I know it's a big task. I know, it's not going to happen overnight and I'm cognizant of that. I know it's not going to happen by me alone. And, you know, the support of you guys and being able to work with you guys as much as possible, obviously, you know, creates that cohesion to have more people aligned to make things happen. And so, of course, we're going to be looking to partner with as many organizations that agree that this change is needed and can help us in various ways to try to accomplish some of these these large feats that we want to accomplish.

Erik Johnson: 16:31

I remember when Hurricane Sandy was approaching hadn't even made landfall yet. And I thought I could use this to raise awareness by predicting that eventually this is going to be hurricane Stachy. And I sent messages to all the MECFS Institute's and advocates all over the place, saying watch this thing, because later on, this is going to be known for creating awareness of Stachybotrys and it did, but unfortunately, none of them responded.

Michael Rubino: 18:20

Yeah it did create a lot of awareness. I looking back at all the reports, there was obviously tons of Stachybotrys involved so it definitely did create some awareness, but not enough, you know, and it didn't move the needle. You know, it's really difficult with these new cycles because, yeah, it comes and goes so fast and nothing really happens if you don't capitalize on that. And, you know, we've myself included, you know, we've just failed to capitalize on some of these stories to really try to make a difference. And so I'm constantly thinking of ways to do better on that capitalization and try to make sure that when we do have media attention on it, we can harness that attention and try to create more attention on it, because it's just so desperately needed. You know, we all know this or part of it. But unfortunately, you guys, I'm sure see this all the time. We are in a circle of people that are aware, right, that circle may, it may have gotten bigger over the past 20-30 years, but it is still so small, right compared to the population. And so there's just so much work to do. I know that we probably won't solve the entirety of the problem in our lifetime. But as I look at it, you know, I want to be able to do everything that I possibly can. I still remember being that that 20 year old kid watching people suffer and you know, saying, Man, that just doesn't make any sense. We got to do something about this right. Every time I kind of look back at at where I started and where I came from, and I look at today, I'm nowhere near anywhere near where I where I'd like to be and where I'd like to see this. So it's it's, it's really gratifying to be able to just try to come up with new ideas every single day to try to figure out how can we make a difference? You know? And like I said, not not a perfect solution yet, but I'm trying every every which way that I can.

Erik Johnson: 20:21

As per Kealy's question about sampling in different areas of the house, is there a way to incorporate, like, a place the location where the sample was taken into the database, so that even though you might not be able to make that information available immediately, it's still accessible for study purposes later?

Michael Rubino: 20:41

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So there is a chain of custody, just like pretty much any test that happens. And within that chain of custody, you actually put where that where the locations that you did collect the dust from, you know, from a perspective of, can you collect dust from every single room and get a little more granular with it, you can, but the unfortunate part of this is, every time a sample is taken the lab charges to analyze that sample, so it just becomes more expensive, right. And so, if you're trying to work with somebody who is, you know, trying to conserve funds to get the information that they need to make a difference in their home, and they're not interested in the science project that maybe myself or you might be interested in, it's hard to get people to pay for all these additional samples for the lab to be analyzed. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not a lab expert, I don't, I don't know their business model and how things work. But obviously charging per sample really kind of limits the amount of data that we can get. So I think that's why we're going to start to see more, you know, aggregate data of homes instead of individual rooms, right. So but in some cases, we may, and we may get, you know, this is from the bedroom, these two bedrooms, this is from the upstairs, you know, living room or den, or whatever it is. So, we will have a chain of custody, I just don't know, if we're going to get data from every single room.

Erik Johnson: 22:10

John Banta talked about an introductory method of looking at this called he calls pathways testing, sort of testing for the proteins and beta glucans, and byproducts of mold and using this as sort of the foot in the door for further analysis. Can that be factored into this as well?

Michael Rubino: 22:28

Yeah, and I think that's brilliant, right? I think that's kind of the whole idea of what the dust test is, is you're testing for the byproducts, right, you're testing for what is being created by these sources of water intrusion and that kind of allows us to back channel into Okay, now that we know what the sources are, where are they coming from? You know, and you guys know a lot about Stachybotrys, the odds of it ever showing up in an air sample are pretty slim. And if it does show up, it's got to be a lot of it's somewhere, right? So being able to kind of look for those signs, you're gonna have a lot easier time finding Stachybotrys in the dust, just because of its, you know, heavier nature, stickier nature than you are going to be, you know, finding it in the air. So the idea is to kind of open things up and look for that exposure that you're being exposed to, and help trace back where could be coming from.

Erik Johnson: 23:19

Alright, sounds like a terrific plan.

Alicia Swamy: 23:22

And when you talk, I just I really feel your ingenuity, your integrity, and you know, we're right there with you, Michael. And I think a lot of people listening today, what people don't understand about this work is that it's extremely hard. All odds are against us, oftentimes the people we try to help want to fight with us. And this is really a labor of love, of empathy for others, and wanting to make a change to stop catastrophe really. I mean, as we can see, from Hurricane Katrina, I mean, not only were there sick buildings, but there was basically sick regions, right? All these buildings together are just, you know, causing a, basically a catastrophic ecosystem that's extremely toxic to live in. I think we all kind of see the slow train of problems and issues happening and we're trying to be there to kind of stop it. And what I'm just really interested is in your foundation, are you going to be training others to learn or teach them how to do proper remediation?

Michael Rubino: 24:28

Yes, I don't know that I'm trying to get into the business of certification and start competing with other organizations on that front. But I certainly want people to understand the foundation of what remediation looks like. I built a school inside of our main warehouse in Freehold New Jersey. Literally, we had the idea and started building it maybe a week later and finish it up in about March. Since then, we've done a lot of filming there to try to show people what containment should look like how the air scrubber should be set up properly for negative pressure, you know, different aspects of remediation how to do the HEPA vacuuming properly, because even that, you know, can be done improperly. You know, when you're treating what, you know, what is the goal behind treating, it's not just to kill stuff, right, we want to actually bring stuff to the surface and wipe it away or vacuum it away. And so a lot of that is meant to be created for people who maybe can't afford remediation, but are handy. And you know, or just, they're about to get handy and do whatever it takes to create a healthier environment for them and their family and that that is the goal. And so, you know, definitely that that is coming, it's in the works. There's a lot of educational videos, just filmed some some stuff a couple of weeks ago, kind of educating people on how to keep water out and how to maintain your home because obviously, water creates the the opportunity for these things to become abundant inside of our homes. And so, you know, my path is educating people, because I think we can make all the change and all the regulations and change all the rules. But if people aren't educated to advocate for their own health, when it comes to their home, it's just not going to work, right? Because, unfortunately, rules and regulations don't stop people from doing bad things. You know, and I think that's what it comes down to. So we all have to educate ourselves and that's one of the main pathways that I'm trying to create for people.

Alicia Swamy: 26:34

Fantastic. Well, when you put that out there, we'd love to, you know, promote that on our site and get people educated. That's what we're all about, right? We're, we're all about educating on the health side, you are educating on the home, you know, maintenance side, and that's extremely important. They both need to go hand in hand.

Michael Rubino: 26:54

Yeah.

Alicia Swamy: 26:54

Now, on your website, it says that you guys are pushing forward in initiatives with public policy. Have you guys started any sort of education or trying to reach out to, you know, government agencies or senators or anything like that? And if you have they been receptive to the information that you're trying to provide?

Michael Rubino: 27:15

So yes, we have reached out to senators, Brandon Chappo has, he's the point on that he's actually the the chair of the policy reform, entire initiative. But I have assisted Brandon on some calls with senators, you know, walking them through stuff on Zoom, showed them statistics and information of why this is such a big problem. Especially in Florida,

Alicia Swamy: 27:36

Fantastic thank you so much for sharing that. where I have a location, I was able to pull up data from people's homes, to discuss with them of just how prevalent this really is. And, you know, they've all have heard of mold, And I just I look forward to seeing you guys evolve. And just right? They've heard the word mold. You know, they've heard of water damage. One of the senators even had a granddaughter that, you know, experienced some illness in a like Kealy had mentioned prior, it's just a lot of this stuff is water damage environment. So she was familiar and the reception is good. It is good. There are there are obviously a lot of challenges, right? Because there's a lot of there's a lot of industries that are entangled into the problem, right? We have bureaucratic trying to get everything set up and get the construction industry, we have real estate industry, we have homeowners insurance, we have the educational systems, because this is a problem in schools too, right? So they're looking paperwork, right. And, you know, make sure we're dotting the I's at the sum of all the parts, and they're, you know, seeking advice on how can we make change in a way where it doesn't cause other things to completely fall apart and being cognizant of that fact because we don't want to bankrupt insurance companies and crossing the t's so we can move forward and we're kind of and then not be able to insure homes, just as one example and so it is an interesting challenge. However, it's kind of one of those things that I was explaining to them. It's like in that position right now to and, you know, we have so many anything else, right? We regulate the emissions from cars, and it creates a lot of challenges for businesses, but businesses overcome it. Right. So yes, it's going to create some challenges, but we're going to overcome it, we're going to ideas, and we want to launch them all right now. But it's have to adapt, we're going to have to come up with new ideas. I have some ideas for the insurance industry to be able to, you know, be able to properly cover people and make like one step at a time and so we find doing one step at the sure that when there is a problem, they can cover it. Right. So there are a lot of these ideas were being discussed. Florida wrote a bill off of our discussion, that bill is tabled right now, with midterm elections coming up. We time really helps. And yes, I agree with you when you're plan obviously after midterm elections to reengage and get that bill brought up. We have another bill in Ohio that Brandon Chappo, you know, had really been the champion of committed to a cause. It doesn't matter what failures, what making sure that that was written. There has been some different iterations of that bill so far after certain health committees have taken place. And the NEI, the consensus was, let's zoom out of mold for a second and talk more about water blockades, what obstacles you have, you find a way to overcome damage, right and water damage being the gateway, obviously, we know it's the cause of creating the opportunity for mold. But if we zoom out of of mold event and talk more about water damage, them, you become stronger, and you build a solution, and we're just that buzzword alone, right, we're not going to have as much restriction, we're not going to have as much conflict with so many different people and organizations. So we're looking totally there with you, we're vibing on that same type of at kind of that strategy as we refresh our approach on how we get those written. We have conversations with senators in Virginia right now. So we have Ohio, Virginia, and Florida right now, it takes a lot of time, as you guys can imagine, energy, and we really would love to continue to support and right meeting with senators and reviewing drafts of what they're sending over, adding comments to it. And then of course, it has to go to all these other people that we have no control over to promote you guys in any way shape or form. Another aspect of review as well and add their comments. So there is a bit of a time process with this. We also need constituents, people that live in that state to support the bill and to call call their your foundation I'd love to talk about and something that maybe their senators, letting them know that they need to support that bill, you know, and obviously getting some attention around it to further drive point the home that this is something that we want as a civilization. And so there's some steps in we can even talk behind the scenes in the future is your that Brandon spends a lot of time kind of when constituents are looking to make the change, kind of coaching them through how to do it because it's, it's an overwhelming process, clinical environmental research that you guys actually are going anything bureaucratic, and sending paperwork in right can be a bit difficult to navigate. When you couple that with not feeling well, you know, living inside of a home that's impacting you, all the stresses of life that you're dealing to be raising money to provide grants or whatever that looks with, with that declining health, right. And now you have to add all of this bureaucratic stuff to your plate. It is difficult, and it requires, you know, some support from us. So like to interested researchers or people who are really it is it is definitely time consuming. And that's why we're trying to essentially tackle some targeted states. As we finish up those states move on to other states. So it's going to take a few years, for sure to get where we want to go. I passionate and looking into this. And now I know that you suspect that we'll have some failures and we'll learn from those failures and have to try again. I think that it's a journey, it's not an easy fight. It's an uphill battle. I was know that we are very on the hypersensitivity kick. This has shocked at some of the people that supported the bills, and some of the people that did not support the bills. That's information that we can we can physically see it's public information. So we have our work cut out for us. But you know, not been validated thing. A lot of even professionals who are one thing I can tell you is, this is a big part of our foundation's mission and something we're not giving up on. mold experts don't understand it and like to chalk it up to something else, whether it's hysteria, whether it's quorum sensing, or whatever coherence people are talking about these days. So this is something that we're just really interested in and Erik right now can give you a whole setup for at least five important experiments and research studies we can do. So that's something that we'd be really interested in chatting with you about and possibly partnering on validating certain aspects of this illness.

Michael Rubino: 34:42

I would be be delighted to to partner with you guys on on anything that we can come up with that, you know, can get it done right. Your comment on hypersensitivity is a you know, it's crazy to me how other people don't see it. I've walked into people's homes before where they were so sensitive, you know, I couldn't bring myself on in, I couldn't bring any computer or laptop. I've visited people who, you know, were sensitive to light and sound to the point where they literally soundproof the entire room and like, there were blackout shades all over the place, they could not, they literally hurt them. Right. So to say that hypersensitivity is something that doesn't exist, is impossible. I've just been to too many homes, right? I know, that may be anecdotal evidence, right. But when you start to see patterns, I don't care if it's anecdotal or not, right, it all starts off is anecdotal, until somebody verifies. When I start to see patterns, and those patterns hold true. You know, that's all the truth that I need. And there's definitely something going on, when one person out of a family of four seems to be extremely sensitive to chemicals, or light or sound or their environment and three of the four don't, right. So there is obviously something there. And I think from where I'm sitting, we can no longer just ignore this. And we can no longer just, you know, vilify people and not not take their word at face value, we need to investigate, we need to figure out why it's happening, how it's happening. You know, it's very obvious to me that mold is a trigger definitely is whether it causes it or not, I have no idea. And I'm not trying to get into the whole hysteria that saying something like that might bring, but there's something there, and it's not being looked at. So I think that these are obviously some of the problems. In research, obviously, most research is done on lab rats, as we all know, a lot of the research on lab rats shows that mold is a big problem. However, for some reason, we have people out there that say that well, that that's on a lab rat. So that's, you know, not definitive Well, so is everything else that you study, so you can just pick and choose when something's real and when it's not, right. These are, these are some of the problems that we're dealing with. And you know, I just can't figure it out. But unfortunately, you know, what I'm about to tell you might surprise you is just in the industry that I'm in, you know, there, there are certain people that badmouth me or, you know, say certain things kind of like the Mean Girls, or something. And I don't really understand why, right, because I'm here just trying to do what I'm doing to help people. But I guess, you know, if I were to guess, maybe certain people feel threatened, right? And when you look at the scientific community, and the research community and the academia community, right, maybe there's they feel threatened by certain things that if they were to come to light, or for whatever reason, right, but we can't look at that and accept it, people need real information. And that real information can save lives. Right. And that's the part that really kills me is, you know, while we're all fighting each other on on different things that exist or don't exist and trying to sell different stuff and whatnot. I think at the end of the day, we need to validate these things, so that people have the information to get better, or to prevent themselves from getting sick in the first place. And while we're fighting, that's not happening. That's what really tears me apart because, you know, it's, it's just, it's just silly.

Alicia Swamy: 38:33

Yeah, I, you know, it seems like research and science has become so egotistical and just so narcissistic, that everyone wants to make a claim, and they want to attach their name to that claim, and they want to be the big next star. And, I mean, Erik could tell you, I mean, he's been in the game for 35 years, anyone who tries to make this about them, or, you know, just an ego driven thing, they fail in the end, and they never get anywhere. And I feel like when you put heart, empathy, passion into this, like, that's what's gonna win in the long run, and that message and the way that you deliver it, and the way that you're helping, is really going to turn people around and say, Hey, this is the person that actually is helping people, this person has screwed me over, you know, it's like, that person will get their claim to fame, but they're going to die off eventually. And the people who are going to be left are going to be the people like us, people like you and whoever is tied to your foundations and whoever is really in this to help people. And, Erik, I don't know if you want to go ahead and tack on some historical information on that. I'm sure you do because you've seen it.

Erik Johnson: 39:41

No, don't even get me started. We can cover all that later.

Michael Rubino: 39:45

Yeah, you know, it's it's tough. Right. And I think it's tough. And I think, you know, I guess I'm grateful that I have thick skin, you know, because I could see why certain people may get started on something and then give up you know, because at the end of the day, we're human beings and, you know, we're when we're constantly dealing with conflict trying to get something done. And then you have, you know, other conflict, that's an unnecessary conflict that enters into the mix, you know, it can be draining, right. So I'm just fortunate to have thick skin and the my goal is, I'm doing this or I'm gonna die trying and so, you know, hopefully, hopefully we get some somewhere before I die. But, you know, I wish we could just all work together, right? We're all we're all here for the same cause. Or at least we should be and if we all work together, we might get something done.

Alicia Swamy: 40:38

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Michael, for joining us today. So if anyone is interested in looking into you, your foundation, your company or anything like that, where can our guests find you?

Michael Rubino: 40:54

Yes, so you have HomeCleanse.com and that's the company that provides services and very shortly products to help you navigate your journey in improving your environment. And then we have the moldmedic.com, which I'm sure will change at some point very shortly. That is going to be where you can find me. You need to consult with me one on one. You want to write to me anything there, you want to see anything I've put out, videos, social media, articles, it's all there. And then you have changetheairfoundation.org. So if you're looking to find a nonprofit, anything that I said that resonates with you, join, volunteer, please, we need more people in various different states that want to help us bug their senators to make sure that they're aware that we need change in state legislation. And I'm also I'm also almost done wrapping up my second book, which I you know, only have a working title so I'm gonna hold that for now. But that's also part of the main reason of pulling off of the mold medic getting ready for the next chapter here, which is it's going to zoom out it's going to have a lot of information on mold. There's a lot lot of advancements of things that I've learned over the past three years since I first wrote the book that I want people to have, that I think is valuable information. And, you know, there's a lot of entanglement with different industries that need to be adjusted and want to create that awareness of how that that may look in the future. And so the second book, I think, is going to be immensely helpful as I realize it probably should have been written first. Looking at the concept, you start off, why, what is the problem and why and then the mold medic is really the how. So we're going to talk more about what and why in this book. So I'm very excited to to kind of shift gears, you know, transform myself out of the mold medic and more as myself as an author Michael Rubino. And this is what the next chapter might look like. So, you know, it's where December is the second year anniversary of when the mimetic was released, and I can't make any promises that this book will come out in December, but that is the goal.

Alicia Swamy: 46:02

Fantastic. Well, thanks, Michael. We'd love to also extend an invitation to our mold tour here in Truckee, California. I'm here with Erik hanging out in the woods. He's actually going to be putting on a mold tour that describes where CFS started, how it started. He's taking everyone to Ground Zero. She took me there as a hypersensitive individual, it was very intense. I don't know how it would be for someone who isn't hypersensitive, maybe they would feel something maybe they wouldn't. But he's basically helping people understand the paradigm, what's going on where it all started, and also to validate people's hypersensitivity symptoms, who still can't quite wrap their heads around it. So we'd love to extend that offer to you. It's going on September 9 through 11. If you are interested in joining, we are also filming this experience. So anyone who joins us on that date will be in our docuseries. And so if you are interested, let us know if not totally fine, we have a million dates planned ahead in the future, we've had crazy amount of people reach out to us. So we will be doing a lot of private tours, etc. But we will definitely be filming on that weekend and creating our own Docu series and our own documentary basically on what Erik has been fighting for and what evidence has been suppressed for the last 35 years. So just throwing it out there don't don't need to make a decision quite yet. Just feel free to reach out if you're interested. So thanks, everyone for joining us. We appreciate it so much. Michael is just a Titan. He is a rock star in this industry. He's a great guy doing wonderful things in this world and we can't wait to see how he evolves and as always, we're going to be a big supporter of you. So thank you so much.

Michael Rubino: 47:42

Take thank you so much for having me.